Nursing consultation as an educational space for the self care of patients with diabetic foot

Abstract

Objective: To accomplish an educative action on self care with feet in diabetic patients and to evaluate the knowledge acquired. Method: The educational action was carried out in the Outpatient Clinic of Wounds and Diabetic Foot, in the countryside of the state of São Paulo, in patients with diabetic foot. During the nursing visit, an educational action was performed for self care practices with the feet. In the end, a questionnaire was applied to evaluate the knowledge learned. Descriptive statistics were used. Results: The sample consisted of 42 patients, 54.8% male, mean age 63.0 (±13) years, 80.3% had a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus (DM) for more than 10 years and diabetic foot (100%), retinopathy (47.4%), and heart disease (34.2%) were the most frequent complications. Most understood that healthy diet (85.7%) and physical activities (100%) are required to keep the blood sugar level under control. Regarding self care with feet, 80.9% inspect their feet daily, 95.2% wash them with cold to warm water, 7.2% reported doubts about moisturizing, 4.8% made the rounded cut, 14.3% had their cuticles removed by a pedicure professional, 16.7% wore sandals, and 9.5% had inadequate stockings. Conclusion: It is believed that the contributions of this study are in the challenge of sensitizing the population to adopt healthy habits and the implementation of educational practices directed to the encouragement of self-care.